I remember some of the trips the three of us took together. Some were just local stuff like fishing on Sauvie Island. One trip will always have a special place in my heart, though.
We went down to Coos Bay to pick up a trailer. This may have been about the time Uncle Loyal had the stroke, though I am not certain about that. Anyway, we stopped along the way to fish at the Roseburg Weigh Station and to do some target shooting. It was just a great road trip with Dad and Grandpa.
On the way back for some inexplicable reason they noticed I was reading Barbara Robinson's awesome book The Best Christmas Pageant Ever . They wanted to know what it was like so Grandpa flipped on the dome light in his Chevy Luv and kept on a driving as I started reading.
Well, they liked the first chapter pretty well so we decided to read "just one more chapter".
That one proved to be pretty good as well so we read "just one more".
It was like having two little kids begging for "just one more, just one more" except I was the little kid and they were theoretically the adults in the situation.
I wondered for a while if they were just humoring me but that worry disappeared when they had tears rolling down their faces from laughing when Imogene shouts her famous line.
We...well, I...ended up reading the entire book out loud on the trip back. It was a really great time, just the three of us traveling, enjoying a silly book but mostly enjoying time together. It was a great trip.
Post script; a couple years ago for his birthday, instead of buying anything for Dad, I took some photos from a trip I took with my sister and brother in law to Mexico and narrated over it, just memories about what Dad means to me. Part of it was about how great a moment that trip was in my life. To my delight, he told me he had just been thinking about it. That let me know it was a special time for him, too.
3 comments:
It's no wonder to me why God reveals Himself as our Father. So easy to see Him in an earthly father who loves his children and his God.
No way! I had a short family road trip in high school (SF to Sacramento) and although I had lost my voice, I read it aloud to my dad, uncle, and brother, too :)
I loved that book. And what a sweet present for your dad!
I used to constantly read to the kids. I don't know when it stopped, but I think it's time they read to me. Where did I leave that copy of Catcher in the Rye...?
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